


all the walls i built are coming down

by memorysdaughter



Series: all these walls are shaking [2]
Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: Autism, Autistic David, Autistic Patterson, Captivity, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 00:39:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16230608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorysdaughter/pseuds/memorysdaughter
Summary: Set after "rise til we fall."  Patterson finds herself at the mercy of Roman, Shepherd, and Borden, while Jane and the team try to find her.Post Season 2 mid-season break.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second fic using my headcanon of an autistic Patterson. Thank you for all the support on the first story!
> 
> Title is from "These Walls" - Vmk & Arcando (ft. Tim Riehm)

Roman stands outside the closed door of the room where the subject is experiencing her third black-out of the day, courtesy of her inability to answer simple questions during the morning’s exercises.  Roman likes the black-outs.  No light or sound permeates the subject’s cell, just their subject strapped to her chair, forced into the hole of sensory deprivation that so far has reduced a once-strong woman to a broken mess.

As the fourth hour of the black-out reaches its close, Roman steps to the subject’s room’s window and turns on his night vision goggles.  He peers through the glass.

In the center of the room is the subject’s chair, and in the chair the subject herself.  She’s clothed in a filthy hospital gown, splattered with blood, tears, sweat, and several less savory bodily fluids.  Her wrists and ankles are pinned to the chair with heavy leather straps while two more sets keep her elbows and knees firmly held in place; her head is held back against the headrest with a similar band, matted hair pressed down by its weight.

Roman smiles.  Their subject has not eaten for two days.  Has not had water for twenty-four hours.  Has not slept for fifty-three hours.  Their subject is getting desperate.

He sees the twitches in the subject’s face and legs.  Hears the pathetic little noises emanating from the subject’s mouth, gasps and whimpers and choking hiccups.  He tries to imagine what those noises feel like for the subject, since the room’s makeup leaves the subject completely deaf.  He watches as the subject’s bloody fingertips dig into the armrests of the chair as though trying to dig grooves into the metal with fingernails no longer there.

At the top of hour five, Roman presses his earpiece. “Engage subject.  Pattern four.”

The lights go up, the noise blasts on, and Roman smiles.  There are days he absolutely loves his job.

* * *

Out of the dark and silence she’s assailed by noise and light.  A strobe light, right in her face.  Noise - babies wailing, dogs barking, bombs going off, a woman screaming - it all sounds like it’s happening right around her.  She can’t move. She can’t get away.

Her fingers dig into the chair and pain lances up her arms.  She tries to scream but her throat is dry.  She throws her body back a fraction of an inch, feeling the tiniest release as the thick straps, for a few brief seconds, cease to bite into her skin.

Pressure builds in her chest and her head.  Her thoughts swim.  She takes a breath in, chokes on it, and vomits.  Hot, stringy bile fills her mouth and splatters down her chin. Her fingers dig in tighter.

A slap from behind her causes her to cry out.  Her body jerks forward and the straps dig into her skin.  Bracelets of pain jerk tight around her arms and legs. More bile drips down her face and neck.  She coughs and wheezes, tries to yell out _NO_.  Something catches in her airway and her already accelerated heart threatens to beat out of her chest.   Her stomach throbs and the pain almost blinds her.

For a split second she wonders if this is how it’ll end.  Her vision gets hazy and the noises around her distort as though she’s underwater.  She tries to suck in a breath and can’t. Her chest tightens, her body tenses, and she prepares herself to go down into the unending blackness.

Then the noise stops, the lights are cut, and the chair tilts in space, putting her face towards the floor.  Somehow she’s able to clear her airway and she sucks in a deep but rattly breath.  She hacks and spits and gags, sobbing.

The chair yanks her backwards and she feels a hand brush her cheek.  She whimpers and pulls away from it as best she can.  The hand strokes her hair, _once twice_ and then she feels fingers grip her hair and yank, _hard_.

She cries out.  As her mouth opens she feels a flexible plastic straw slip into it, and water is poured down her throat.  It feels so good but at the same time the panic over not being able to breathe floods back into her. She chokes and vomits again.

The chair sits her upright and she flops against the straps.  The hand comes back to her head and strokes her hair once more.  She tries not to lean into the touch.  She knows it will hurt.

The straw brushes against her lips and then stops.  Hungrily she pulls it back into her mouth and slurps down as much of the ice cold water as she can.  Something tells her she’ll pay for it later, but she can’t stop.

In a matter of seconds the straw’s yanked away, the fingers grip her hair, a slap ricochets pain across her face.  

It’s over.

Until it starts again.

* * *

At the end of the day Roman goes into the room with one of his mother’s flunkies, a thick, heavyset guy called Gabe.  Gabe’s not one for discussion.  He’s more of an action man.  Roman likes that about him.  Before all this, they hadn’t spent much time together and he only got to admire Gabe’s work from afar.  Now they’re two celebrants in a ritual both of them enjoy just a little too much.

They’re breaking their subject.

Well, technically, this late in the day they’re recovering the broken pieces, smashing them back together, and letting that flawed pottery rest.  Just enough of a rest to make their subject believe she’s out of the worst. That they won’t do it again.

They always do it again.

Roman flicks on the soft lights and hears the subject moan.  Gabe continues on his mission, which is to get the subject out of the chair.  Roman watches as he deftly undoes the straps holding the subject down and scoops the woman out of the chair.  She mumbles something.  Gabe just grunts in response.

A third guy, who demands everyone calls him Scoot despite the fact everyone knows his name is Jerry, will come in and clean up the room.  Roman’s not sure who Jerry pissed off to get clean-up duty for the week, but he’s glad he’s never going to be tasked with that particular job.  The subject’s a fighter, which is interesting. It makes his job more fun.  But she’s a fighter, which means there’s usually a mess left after their sessions.

Gabe carries the subject into the next room and dumps her, fairly unceremoniously, on the mattress in the corner.  He gives Roman a nod and heads back out the door to retrieve the cart for the evening. Roman stands over the mattress, watching as the subject curls into herself, grasping at the thin pillow they’ve given her as though it’s a life raft.

He gives her a moment with her pathetic comfort object, fascinated by the way she raises it to her cheek and rubs it as she rasps out something low.  It might be a prayer.  The subject utterly intrigues him.

Gabe returns with the cart and leaves it by Roman’s side, then leaves without comment.  Roman turns his head to watch Gabe as he exits, and when he turns back to the subject she’s sitting upright, legs crossed, body as small as she can make it, rocking back and forth, flicking her fingers at her mouth.

“Oh, no,” he murmurs softly, kneeling down next to her. “We talked about that last night.”

He points at the window on the opposite side of the room.  Behind it a small red light is visible.  They’ve convinced the subject it’s being broadcast live to any number of people on the Internet, as well as one very specific person she cares about.  In reality, the camera’s just recording everything they do in both this room and the one next door where they do most of their activities. “Do you want her to see that?  Don’t you know what she thinks about that?”

The subject whimpers but doesn’t stop rocking.

Roman leans in closer, until his mouth is close to her ear. “She thinks you’re a weirdo,” he says. “She thinks you’re weak.”

The subject’s hands clench into fists.  Roman slowly backs up.  He learned his lesson on one of the first days the subject was with them.  He got too close, trying to speak directly to her, and she had enough fight in her to take a swing at him.  He got a black eye; she got eighteen hours in the dark with water dripping on her face.

He still likes to think he came out the winner.

“You want to eat?” he asks, changing the topic.

The rocking doesn’t slow.  The fists come up to the subject’s head and she begins beating herself, almost rhythmically.  Little bits of words escape from her mouth. Roman sees tears stream down her face.  He kneels down again. “She can see you, you know,” he says.

The subject hiccups.

“She wants you to stop.”

The rocking slows and the subject’s hands curl into her hair.  Sobs hitch her chest and snot runs down her face.  Roman gently touches her cheek. “Good girl.”

He retrieves the first supplies from the cart - water and food.  The subject practically lunges towards the food, even though it’s only protein-loaded oatmeal.  Her hands shake as she takes the bowl from him and she slurps down half of it before he can stop her.

“Easy, easy,” he cautions her, pulling the bowl away from her mouth. “Don’t want you to vomit.”

The subject gasps and reaches out for it.

“Slow down.  I promise you’ll get the rest of it.”

Roman next hands her an insulated mug. “It’s water.  Drink slowly.”

The subject gulps it.  Roman pulls it away. “I said, drink slowly.”

It takes more than an hour and a half, but eventually Roman feeds the subject her fill of the oatmeal and allows her to drink as much as she wants, both of water and of electrolyte-infused fluids.  It’s pathetic how much she likes him in those moments, how much she believes he’s going to end all this, and it’s strange how much he doesn’t want to hurt her in those moments.  He can see what his sister likes in her - she’s delicate.  Trusting.  Strong.  Smart.

As soon as she’s swallowed the last spoonful of oatmeal, she looks up at him. “Why?” she whispers.

Roman freezes.  He nearly drops the water bottle he’s holding.  Then he forces his face back into neutral and yanks her up from the mattress.

She’s almost too weak to walk.  He holds her up as they go down the short hallway to the shower room.  He shoves her down on a chair and turns on the water.

Roman doesn’t find this part as interesting as he does everything else.  This just feels like work.  And honestly, he could get one of his mother’s women to do this, but he feels oddly stern about keeping the subject and her life, such as it is now, under his thumb.  So he doesn’t complain as he lets the cold water pour down over her, as he scrubs the blood and bile and sweat and tears from her body, as he pours baby shampoo into her hair and tries to get it unmatted.  He takes a small sense of pride in handing her a new gown to put on, in combing out her hair, in carefully redressing the gunshot wound on her belly, in walking her back to the little room where they’ll finally let her sleep.

It’s in those moments he _almost_ feels sorry for the subject.  He _almost_ doesn’t want to start the next round of torture.

Then the subject flicks her fingers at her wet hair and something in him snaps again. “Stop it, you weird piece of shit!” he barks.

The subject cowers and her wrists jerk back and forth rhythmically, fingers flitting in and out as she rocks back and forth.

“Stop it!” he yells.  He points at the camera. “She’s watching!  She can _see_ you!”

The subject doesn't look at him, completely lost in the stim.  But her mouth opens and she lets out one whispered word. _“No."_

Roman doesn’t know what she’s negating - the fact that he wants her to stop?  The fact that someone is watching?  The idea that someone can see her?

He fumes about this as he flicks the lights off and slams the door, leaving the subject in her cell.

* * *

She huddles under her thin polyester blanket, holding the lumpy pillow to her face.  She rubs it back and forth, imagining it’s a kiss.  Imagining it’s a caress. Imagining she’s anywhere but here.

Sometimes when she closes her eyes she sees her lab, her apartment.  Her games.  Her co-workers.  Jane.  They’re getting further away.  They only come in little glimpses now.

She sees Mayfair often, even though she knows Mayfair’s been dead for awhile now.  Feels Mayfair’s hands on her back as she heaves and vomits, feels fingers in hers, holding her hand tight as she stays in the darkness.  Mayfair knew her secrets.  Mayfair never made her feel any less.  Mayfair thought she was brilliant and kind and funny and Mayfair knew it didn’t matter whatever her resume or her background paperwork said.

As long as Mayfair’s here, things will be okay.  Mayfair will tell the others.  Someone will be here soon.  Someone will find her.

She rubs the pillow on her face once more and lets her body dump into the chasm of unconsciousness.

 

She wakes, her chest burning, her arms and legs numb.  She hears Jane’s voice: _Come on.  You gotta fight.  I’m so sorry.  I love you._

And Mayfair’s: _You’re smarter than this.  Keep your head above water.  I believe in you._

The burning in her chest seems to pulse more fervently.  She tries to stand up but her legs won’t support her.  A rush of bile burns her throat and before she can stop herself she’s vomiting.  Over and over her stomach spasms and acid carves its way up her esophagus.  She can’t breathe.

 _Help!_ she screams, whether out loud or in her mind or both she’s not too sure.   _Help me!_

 _You gotta fight,_ Jane murmurs in her head.

She tries to crawl towards the door, but she can’t remember where it is.  Tears blur her vision of the dark room as more vomit streams out of her mouth.  Her weakened elbows collapse and her body plummets to the floor.  She coughs and hiccups and her head slams against the concrete.  She wails, bringing her head up and slamming it back into the floor.  It doesn’t stop the noise in her head or the burning sensation in her chest.

 _Help!_ she screams again.

The noise gets louder.  Jane’s voice.  Mayfair’s voice.  Babies screaming.  Women screaming.  Bombs again, closer.  She chokes and gags.  There’s nothing left in her to throw up.

She can’t breathe.  The darkness fizzles around her, sparking at the edges, reaching out for her like a fat hand trying to cut off her air supply.

Faintly she sees Jane’s face hovering over her.  She tries to reach out but her hands won’t work.   _I’m so sorry_ , she sobs.

Her body isn’t hers anymore.  A bomb hits somewhere near her head and she jolts.  Her entire body feels like it’s on fire.

_I’m so sorry._

* * *

“Damn it!  She’s seizing!”

Roman looks up.  His mother bolts from her chair towards the monitoring screens. “Get the med team!” she barks at him.

He sprints down the hall to the lounge, where Gabe and Jerry are playing poker with Samina and Clay. “Let’s go!” he orders Samina.

“What is it?” she asks, obviously irritated to be bothered.

“She’s fucking seizing,” Roman snaps. “Get off your ass and fix it!”

Samina grumbles something under breath and gets to her feet almost reluctantly.  Roman’s blood is fizzling in his veins; he’s impatient.  He wants this _fixed_.  He wants it fixed _now_.

Clay doesn’t even bother getting up.  Roman wants to slap him, but he settles for grabbing the crash cart from the supply room and following Samina down the hallway.

By the time he gets to the cell the subject is still writhing on the floor.  Her arms and legs jerk spastically, her back arches, and her eyes roll in their sockets.  Samina holds her hand out. “Ativan,” she says, sounding almost bored.

Roman rummages through the cart and comes out with the drug and a syringe.  His hands shake as he draws up the dosage prescribed for the subject’s height and weight, a number on a card taped to the top of the cart.  He hands it over to Samina.

Samina jabs it into the subject’s vein.

“Easy!” Roman hisses at her.

“Jesus, Roman,” Samina sneers, rolling her eyes. “You’d almost think she’s important to you.”

 _She is_ is on Roman’s lips, but he stops just in time.

The seizure slows and the subject gasps and chokes.  She hiccups and vomits. Samina reaches out and lackadaisically rolls the subject to the side.  Vomit spills out of the subject’s mouth.

“I did my job,” Samina informs him. “She’s still alive.”

The subject starts gasping again.  Roman hears fluid rattling in her throat.  Without a second thought he grabs the suction machine from the cart and kneels down next to her, clearing her mouth and throat.  She wheezes and chokes and vomits one more time.  Again he clears her airway.

Samina gets to her feet and pushes out of the room.

Roman brushes hair away from the subject’s face.  She’s breathing heavily, her eyes unfocused and glassy.  One of her hands moves slowly to her mouth.  She’s still shaking. “Why?” she whispers.

He can’t say anything.  He literally _can’t_.  His mother is watching from somewhere beyond the glass.  The weight of the subject’s treatment is heavy on his shoulders.

The subject reaches out and grabs his shirt. “I.  Asked.  You.   _Why._ Motherfucker,” she rasps.

Roman doesn’t think.  He just moves, jerking away from her.  He grabs a vial from the cart, draws up a dose, and jabs the needle into her arm.

She looks up at him, and he’s almost terrified by the amount of rage in her expression.  It lasts only for a second or two, and then she goes limp, a ragdoll on the concrete floor.

He forces himself to feel nothing.

He stomps back to where his mother is waiting expectantly.  “Get Borden in here,” he snaps. “His precious subject’s becoming a problem.”

* * *

Nas touches Jane’s elbow gently. “I have some information about our… project,” she murmurs. “Come with me.”

Jane looks over at Weller, Zapata, and Reade, who are still trying to figure out Borden’s location.  He still hasn’t shown up on their radar; Jane is loath to move away from them, but something in Nas’ face speaks to urgency.  Jane nods and quietly slips away from the group.

They’ve taken to meeting in a small nook under a staircase.  None of the security cameras can see that spot, and as far as Nas can tell, there’s no listening devices anywhere near it.  Jane believes there’s ears and eyes everywhere, but she’s so desperate for answers that she’s given up caring. “What new information do you have?”

“Thanks to the monitoring device you were able to plant on Roman at your last meeting, we were able to start receiving some surveillance information from their base.  One of my coworkers at the NSA was able to triangulate the signal with other electronic devices within range and discovered this.” Nas holds out her tablet, then hesitates. “I don’t know if I should show you…”

“I need to see it,” Jane says, softly but firmly.

Nas nods. “All right.”

She holds out the tablet. “This was recorded last night.”

Jane grips the tablet tightly.  The screen shows a night-vision view of a small room with mattress to one side.  On the mattress, a huddled form in a hospital gown.  There’s a bucket in the room, too, in the opposite corner.  For the first several minutes the person on the mattress does nothing - they seem to be sleeping.  Then, almost without warning, they jerk upright.

It’s enough for Jane to identify them.  To identify _her._

She lets out a little noise of distress. “Patterson,” she murmurs.

Nas touches her arm. “You can turn it off.”

Jane shakes her head.  She has to see the rest of this.

She watches as Patterson vomits, over and over, alone in the tiny room.  She watches Patterson collapse, watches as Patterson goes into a seizure.  Alone, vomit-spattered, utterly wretched, seizing on a concrete floor.

Tears form in her eyes and angrily she wipes them away.

“You can…” Nas tries again.

Jane tightens her grip on the tablet.  She sees the lights flick on and two people come in.  One moves like she’s strolling through a park; the other is Roman and he looks absolutely terrified.  Jane watches, numbly, as the woman and Roman give Patterson a drug to stop the seizure.  The woman leaves, seemingly not even rattled by the encounter.  Roman stays, performing other medical tasks.

It’s at the end of the horrifying video clip that Jane feels something other than grief and utter despair.  She sees Patterson reach up and grab onto Roman’s shirt, watches Patterson’s mouth as it moves in slow, pronounced syllables.

Jane pauses the video and replays it, again and again and again, until she knows what Patterson’s saying.   _I asked you why, motherfucker._

Patterson’s anger lights rage in Jane’s heart. “We have to go get her,” she says to Nas.

“I agree.  But if you’ll remember, we don’t have any information on what they want from her.  And we can’t get a warrant for this place because we don’t know where it is - the tracking device was only designed to find electronic signals.”

“Show them - whoever it is that can give us a warrant, or better monitoring on Roman - show them this.”

“I can’t do that.”

“This would convince them -”

“It wouldn’t convince them of anything.  We don’t have enough evidence.”

Jane sighs.

“I know how much you care about her,” Nas says gently. “I promise you we’re doing everything we can to go and get her.  I’m working on getting things together.  Once the team’s finished with this latest sweep for Borden, I’ll update them on the situation.  I need you to go to the meeting with Roman as planned.”

“She doesn’t have much time,” Jane says, her voice shaky. “She’s… she’s…”

“I know.” Nas touches Jane’s hand. “But she’s a fighter.”

Jane closes her eyes and lets the tears stream down her cheeks.

  


Somehow after seeing the gut-wrenching footage of Patterson in the cell, seizing and vomiting, Jane manages to get herself together enough to meet Roman.  The team’s discussed the intel they’re comfortable sharing, and Jane’s prepared to give Roman the run-down on a case involving a prominent senator.

For the first time since she started accompanying the team on FBI missions, Jane feels nervous as she moves into the field.  She knows Roman’s dangerous.  She knows Shepherd’s dangerous, and Sandstorm, and… hell, _she’s_ dangerous.  But now Roman has Patterson.  She has to walk a careful line if there’s any hope of infiltrating the compound and getting back the gorgeous blonde who makes Jane’s heart do things she’s not entirely sure of.

It doesn’t help that she spent a good part of the day watching the live footage from the camera.  The audio’s not great, but for the most part it doesn’t matter.  Patterson doesn’t speak, and she’s usually the only one on the screen.  For the majority of the day she sits in a chair, strapped down, while lights flash on and off and hellish noises assail her.  Jane has been in the same room with Patterson when the fire alarm’s gone off, and the look of pure panic and pain on Patterson’s face when that simple event occurred is imprinted into her mind.  These noises are louder, and Patterson can’t leave; she’s pinned in place, at the mercy of her captors.  It’s only when she vomits or passes out that anyone even comes to check on her.

Jane knows it must be hell.  She can’t imagine how Patterson’s lasted as long as she has.  She wants to destroy anyone who gets in the way of bringing Patterson home safely.  Borden.  Roman.  Even her mother.  Patterson is out there, suffering, and Jane has the ability to fix it, if only she can get the information she needs.

  


Roman meets her at a nondescript diner in an out-of-the-way neighborhood.  It takes all of Jane’s inner resolve not to pin him to the wall and demand a trade - his life for Patterson’s.  She forces her spine to become steel as she sits down at the table. “What’s good here?”

“The pie,” Roman answers, though all he has in front of him is a cup of coffee.

Jane slides a flash drive across the table. “This is all of the information we have about Senator Gould’s dealings with the hackers.”

It has some other things on it, including a program set up by Agent McCloud, Patterson’s second-in-command, that will allow the FBI to track Roman’s location - _and Patterson’s._  Since they hadn’t been able to track down Borden, it’s their last-ditch effort to find their scientist.   _Jane’s_ scientist.

Roman pulls the drive towards him and twiddles it between his fingers. “Were you able to figure out when he’s meeting with them?”

Jane nods. “Tomorrow at ten p.m.”

“Good.”

“So what’s the plan?”

Roman slips the drive into his pocket. “Leave that to us.”

He moves to stand.  Jane reaches out, touching his elbow. “Is there something else I could help you with?”

“Not now,” Roman answers. “You’ve given us everything we need.  I’ll get in touch when it’s done.”

He leaves.  Jane puts her head in her hands.

In her pocket, her phone buzzes, signaling an incoming message.  She pulls it out.

_I’m bringing the rescue team in to speak with your team.  Would you like to be here for that meeting?_

Quickly Jane responds to Nas. _I’ll be there in twenty minutes._

* * *

The lights stop.  The noises stop.  She’s alone in the dark.  Still strapped to her chair, breathing heavily, but still alive.

She brings her head up, looking at the ever-present red light.  It’s the one they’ve told her connects what’s happening in her hell-hole to eyes around the world.  And to Jane’s eyes.

Maybe it’s time she stopped looking at that as a well of embarrassment, all those strangers looking at her.  Judging her.  Watching her stim.  Watching her get beaten down and vomit and pass out and bang her head into the walls.  Keeping their eyes on her shame.

She swallows, her mouth sticky.  She wants water.  She wants something to eat.

She wants to go home.

“Jane?” Her voice is thin.  Sickly.  Almost not there. “Jane… if you can see me…”

Tears form in her eyes.  She digs her fingers into the armrests of her chair. “... I don’t know where I am.”

Her voice breaks and she bows her head.  Her body wants to stim.  She feels her fingers tense on the armrests, her wrists flexing as she tries to get her hands to her head.  Her body jerks back and forth in the tiny increments allowed by the straps holding her to the chair.  Her breathing picks up and she tries to get more words out.  They come out as a wail. “Jane.  _Please…”_

Hot tears flow down her face and she sobs. “... please.  So tired… I’m sorry, Jane.  I’m sorry.”

Her head feels heavy and for once she’s glad for the strap pressing it back to the chair. “... can you… come find me?  I know… I’ve… been bad…”

She chokes on a sob and her body spasms with it.  Her arms dig into the straps. “I’m so sorry. I promise… I’ll do better… I won’t… I won’t stim… just please… take me home.”

The red eye just stares back, unblinking.

She closes her eyes and lets the darkness take her.

* * *

Jane slips into the conference room in time to hear Nas say, “What we’re about to tell all of you is extremely classified information.  I cannot stress that enough.  None of this information can leave the room.  We’ve made sure to confiscate all electronic devices and we’ve swept the room for monitoring devices.”

“What’s going on, Nas?” Weller asks. “This is absolutely bizarre.  We thought we had a lead on Borden, and -”

“I understand that, but we…”

Jane strides up the table where he’s seated and puts her tablet in front of him. “Watch this,” she says bluntly.

Nas tries to say something, but Jane holds up her hand.  Weller slowly brings the tablet towards him, looking down at the video.  Jane keeps her eyes on his face.

Then she hears her name.

“Jane?”

Weller looks up at her. “Can she… see us?”

He looks confused and horrified, and it takes all of Jane’s self-control not to rip the tablet out of his hands.

“Jane… if you can see me…”

She leans in, seeing Patterson’s form limp in that horrid chair. “... I don’t know where I am.  Jane.  _Please…_ please.  So tired.  I’m sorry, Jane.  I’m sorry.”

Jane bows her head, avoiding the gazes of everyone else in the room.  Patterson’s voice threatens to break her, so thin and needy and desperate.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” Weller asks gently.

Jane nods, still not making eye contact.  Softly Nas says, “Yes.”

Zapata pulls Jane to her, wrapping her arm around the tattooed woman.

“She’s with Sandstorm,” Weller guesses.

“Roman’s got her.  They mentioned Borden yesterday.  My guess is, Shepherd’s behind all of this,” Nas says.

“I see.” Weller sets the tablet back on the table and Jane snatches it up.

“The plan is to retrieve her,” Nas says. “We have solid intel that Roman and other members of Sandstorm will be attempting to interrupt Senator Gould’s meeting with some hackers, so they’ll be absent from the premises tomorrow night.  As for the rest of their defenses, we’re prepared.”

“I won’t… I won’t stim…” Patterson’s voice emanates up from the tablet.

Jane looks up. “What does that word mean?”

“What word?” Zapata asks.

“Stim.  She says she won’t stim.  What does it mean?”

Reade carefully tries to take the tablet from Jane’s hand, but she resists, clutching it like a life raft. “Those little things she does, the rocking, her finger movements, her little tics… those are stims.”

“It’s because she’s different,” Jane says.  Her lips feel numb. “They took her because they thought she’s weak.”

“No,” Zapata says. “They took her because they knew it would get to us.”

“Mission fucking accomplished,” Reade mutters.

On the screen Roman and the bored-looking woman make another appearance.  Roman yanks Patterson’s unconscious body from the chair and carries her into the other room where he lowers her onto the mattress.  The bored woman drags a cart in behind her. “Honestly, Roman, if you’d just let her _eat_ every now and then, we wouldn’t have these issues.”

“How long, Samina?”

The woman kneels down next to Patterson’s mattress. “At this rate?  Four days until you can resume. Three if you’re lucky.”

Roman puts his head in his hands.

“Don’t pout.  You’re far less attractive when you do that,” Samina purrs. “Now, I’ll need…”

Jane turns the sound down and watches as her brother helps the bored-looking woman hook Patterson up to an IV.  They both leave after that, but Jane just stares at Patterson, motionless on the thin mattress.

“We’ll plan to move at 2200 hours,” Nas says. “Weller, take charge of Red Team.  Reade, Blue Team.  Zapata, you’ll be with me and Jane.  Reade, please make sure Dr. Shah can come with us, and have EMTs ready.  We’ve been monitoring Patterson’s condition as best we can, and she’s going to need a lot of medical intervention.  Weller, can you get in touch with her parents? We should let them know what’s happening…”

The conversation fades away from Jane’s ears.  She keeps her eyes on Patterson, on the fluids flowing through the IV, of the rise and fall of Patterson’s chest.  As long as it keeps going up and down, Jane knows there’s still hope.

For now, that’s all she has, and it’s definitely not enough.

* * *

She’s drifting.  She feels a flash of pain in her arm, the sharp bite of something intravenous taking hold, but she doesn’t find the strength to open her eyes.  She hears low, muttered voices near her, and tries to raise enough interest in their conversation to parse their words. It just doesn’t come.  She feels sick.  Her belly burns with pain.  She tries to roll into a ball, but her arms and legs stay stiff. She hears a _clank._

Her eyes open at that, though the IV drugs are slowing her thoughts and making her nauseous.  She turns her head and tries to pull her arms down towards her body.  Again they stick, stubbornly, above her; she hears another _clank._

She’s manacled, wrists and ankles.  Panic spikes through her and she lets out a wail.  It’s weak and frail and her gut throbs.  She tries to scream, but it comes out sticky, like molasses.  Everything is just _wrong._  There’s some sort of ache in her chest now, heavy, pushing against her ribs and her sternum.  She feels… cold.

“Borden’s going to be waiting for his pet,” one of the voices says.

“Well, get him in here,” the second voice replies. “She’s not going to last much longer like this.”

 _Borden._  He was responsible for all this.  Her eyes close, and she finds herself thinking about every interaction she’s ever had with Borden, all the way back to her first day at the FBI, when he was introduced as a support for her, to make the transition easier on her.  Now as she lays paralyzed and manacled on a cold stone floor, dressed only in a hospital gown splattered with her own bodily fluids, hair matted to her head, feeling nothing but pain, she can’t help but think that Mayfair was wrong about what she needed.

That bothers her, because Mayfair was rarely wrong about anything.  Mayfair was better than an ally.  Mayfair was _family._

She tries to breathe in and finds that her chest just won’t rise the way she wants it to.  That would be concerning, but she’s getting floaty.

“What did you do to her?!”

That’s Borden.  She knows that.

“We’re trying to get the information you requested.” Another voice.  A woman.  Somewhat familiar. “Or did you forget what we’re trying to accomplish here?”

“She looks _dead.”_

“Not yet, anyway.” Jane’s brother.  Roman.  Her captor.

Footsteps grow closer and she opens her eyes.  Blurrily she sees Borden kneeling on the floor near her.  He reaches out, putting his fingers on her pulse.  She tries to jerk away - she doesn’t want his hands on her, not now, not _ever_ \- but she’s very heavy.

“What did you give her?” Borden demands.  She keeps her eyes on him.

“A little of this, a little of that,” the woman replies.   _Shepherd_ \- Jane’s mother.

“Had to stop the seizures,” Roman drawls. “Why do you care what happens to her, Borden?  We’ve tried almost everything to break her, to make her useless to the FBI, and we’ve done exactly that.”

“There’s one thing we’re still working on,” Shepherd says. “She still hasn’t given us the codes to get into her account.”

“She’ll never do that,” Borden says.

“There are a few methods we haven’t tried.”

“No, she’ll _never_ do that,” Borden repeats. “She sees the world in black and white, good and evil.  It’s… it’s an autistic thing.”

She would be offended about the way Borden’s referring to her, but he is right and she’s beyond caring about much of anything.

“She knows the FBI is stopping ‘bad’ people,” Borden goes on. “So that makes her good by association.  Which means what you’re doing… that makes _you_ the bad guys.”

“And yourself,” Shepherd says. “Or did you forget that you were the one who shot her in the gut and handed her over to us?”

Oh, yeah.  Her stomach’s still throbbing.  Nausea twists at her and she retches.

“No.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget that,” Borden says quietly.  He turns back to her. “She won’t give you her passwords.  Or any information.  You could kill her - and forgive me for doubting your methods, but she looks nearly dead anyway - before she’d give them to you.”

She hears Mayfair’s voice: _Not much longer now.  Hang on._

She doesn’t know what that means, but Mayfair is _family_ and family doesn’t lie.

“If she won’t give us access then there’s nothing more we need from her,” Shepherd says coldly. “The FBI’s on their way.  Leave her for them - it’s not as though they can save her.”

Borden hesitates.  She feels him do it.

“You coming?” Shepherd asks.  She sounds like she doesn’t believe Borden’s going to follow her, but he gets up and leaves.

Roman’s the last one in the room.  He kneels down and strokes her head. “I’m so sorry about everything,” he says.

“I don’t… believe you,” she whispers.  Or she tries to.  She’s very cold now, and thinking about Mayfair, and about her mom and dad, and her brother, and her games, and her coworkers, and Jane.  Of all the places in the world that had a Patterson-shaped space in them that aren’t going to have one anymore, or if they still do, that space will be filled by someone not Patterson-shaped.  Which is wrong.

“I’m also sorry about what’s going to happen to you next.” Before she can figure out what he means, he stands up and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.

She’s left in the dark, and she has only seconds to process that before the noise patterns from before start up - babies, bombs, screaming, fire alarms, air raid sirens.  The lights flash on and off, hot and sharp.  She feels her entire body tense and fiery pain shoots down her spine.  She tries to cry out but it’s as though a cold fist is wrapped around her throat, pushing emptiness through her.  Breathing is too much work.  Keeping her eyes open is too much work.

 _If they’re coming, please let them come now,_ she whispers to Mayfair, and she surrenders to the dark.

* * *

Jane finds herself with Nas and Zapata as they make their way into the compound, trailed by two FBI medics and Dr. Shah.  Her heart is throbbing so hard in her ears that she can barely make out Nas’ directions.  They sweep through room after room - empty, every last one of them.

“Do you hear that?” Zapata whispers as they make their way down a short hallway.

Jane forces herself to take a deep breath.  It clears her mind and she picks up on what Zapata’s hearing - bombs.  Screaming. “That’s what they were playing for Patterson.”

“Sick bastards,” Zapata mutters.

Nas takes point as they move into the next room, discovering what looks like electronic control equipment and one-way glass.  Zapata heads over to the controls and begins twisting dials and flipping switches; a few seconds later the noises cease.  After another few minutes she gets the lights back on and they can clearly see through the one-way glass.

“Patterson!” Jane blurts out before she can stop herself, and she bolts forward.

“Jane, wait!” Zapata cries. “We don’t know -”

But Jane’s through the door in a quick dash, making it across the floor to kneel next to Patterson. “Patterson,” she says, putting a hand to the scientist’s cheek. “Hey.  Patterson.”

Dr. Shah is the next to enter; she bends down next to Patterson and whips out her medical kit.  The two medics follow suit.

“Get those manacles off her,” Dr. Shah orders, slipping a pulse ox onto Patterson’s finger as she leans in with her stethoscope.

Nas reaches into her pack and pulls out a packet of lock picks; she and Zapata each take a set of manacles, Nas at the wrists, Zapata at the ankles, and set to work.

Jane can’t take her eyes off Patterson’s face.  It’s almost blue in the weird fluorescent lights, Patterson’s lips bluer still.  There’s a massive cut down Patterson’s face, running almost temple to chin. Jane takes in the rest of the situation as best she can.  Patterson’s fingernails are missing.  There’s blood and something yellow and crusty all over her gown, including one large bloodstain over her stomach.  She’s barefoot, toes and nail beds the same blue as her face and lips.

“Shit,” Dr. Shah bites out. “How are those manacles coming?”

“Got it,” Zapata says, yanking the last set of cuffs free.

“Get the stretcher,” Dr. Shah barks to one of the medics.  To the other, she says, “AED.  _Now.”_

There aren’t many things Jane associates with _fear_ , but as she watches Dr. Shah and one of the medics prep to shock Patterson’s heart back into rhythm, she makes another _fear_ connection.

A hand slips into hers and she realizes it’s Zapata, tugging her back from Patterson’s body. “Come here,” Zapata says softly, gently. “You don’t need to see her like that.”

“But what if it’s the last time…”

“It’s not,” Zapata says, though Jane reads _fear_ in Zapata’s eyes, too. “Let them work.  We’ll be there for her when she wakes up.”

* * *

Weller steps out of the ICU to where Zapata and Jane are sitting on two uncomfortable-looking chairs in the hallway.  He kneels down in front of Jane, putting his hands on her knees.  She raises her head to look at him, her eyes bloodshot.  Her lip trembles as she takes in his serious expression.

“It’s not great,” Weller says, surprised to find his voice husky and raw. “She was gone for almost three weeks.  She’s extremely dehydrated and malnourished.  It looks like she was shot in the stomach, and while it seems like they tried to take care of the wound, it’s infected now.  Her heart stopped again while she was in the ambulance with Dr. Shah, but they were able to get it going, so she’s stable for now.”

Jane squeezes Zapata’s hand.

“I can stop,” Weller says.

“No,” Jane gets out. “I need to… I need to know it all.”

Weller nods. “Okay.  Let me know…”

“I need to know it all,” Jane repeats, fiercer.

“Her fingernails are gone.  She was given a cocktail of drugs to slow her heart rate and paralyze her.  It also dropped her body temperature, so they’re still working on trying to get it back up.  Her wrists are broken, and she has wounds from where she was restrained in that chair.  And that’s just the physical damage.  I don’t even know what to expect from her mentally when she wakes up.  It’s… it’s going to be a long road.”

Jane bows her head and lets the wave of fear and rage that’s been building for three weeks rush over her.  It takes her, pulls her under, and she goes with it.  Her eyes close and she sees red, thinking of her mother, and Roman, and Borden, and everything she’s going to do to them once -

“Jane.”

She opens her eyes and finds Zapata studying her. “What?”

“Weller said you can go in and see her.  If you want to.”

“I want to.” Jane gets to her feet and follows Weller into the ICU cubicle.

Seeing Patterson so injured and broken in the Sandstorm compound was terrible, and seeing her in a hospital is only a little less terrible, mostly because Jane knows Patterson’s safe.  Safe, anyway, from flashing lights and sonic assaults, but still hooked up to multiple IVs, bandages dappling her limbs, casts on her wrists, breathing tube down her throat.

As Weller directs her to a chair, Jane feels the rage and fear rush out of her.  She can be Patterson’s person, whatever that’s going to mean now.  She can be stability.  She can figure out how to make Patterson feel safe.  Everything else can come later.

She wraps her hand around the tips of Patterson’s fingers, gently, and finds her voice. “Patterson, it’s me.  I just… I’m here. I hope that’s enough for now.”

There’s no response, but Jane wasn’t really expecting one anyway.  She leans back in the chair, still carefully holding Patterson’s fingers, and finds that for the first time in three weeks, she feels something that could, maybe, someday, be peace.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My head-casting for Patterson's brother is Troy Baker.
> 
> I borrowed the character of Kiri from "Critical Role," which is an amazing show you should definitely be watching.
> 
> I binge-watched "The Great British Baking Show" over the course of three weeks, which I'm not sure is something to be proud of but was definitely responsible for me including a reference to it in here.
> 
> I thought this was going to be the last chapter, but I think there's at least one more.
> 
> The headings for the different vignettes in this chapter are all quilt block names.

**I. all tangled up**

“Okay, little bird, what are you thinking today?  We going to continue on the Great British Baking Show binge?”

She turns her head slightly towards her brother, Rick, as he enters the living room with a tray and a big smile.  It’s been a good few weeks staying with her parents, not the least because she gets to see her brother every single day, something that hadn’t happened since high school.  He is a very good brother.

He sits down on the couch next to her and gently takes one of her casted hands in his.  With quick, practiced movements, he uses a Velcro strap to attach a short, rubber-ended stick to her pointer finger.  Under her hands he slides a tablet device, turning it on as he positions it. “You just let me know what you want.”

She didn’t talk fluently for a long time, until she was almost seven, and throughout her childhood and adolescence there were plenty of times when she chose not to speak for different lengths of time.  Sometimes words were just… too heavy.  Her parents weren’t bothered, and there were several of her communication devices still in her room at their house when she arrived three weeks ago, unable to get out anything more than whimpers.  Rick was the first to figure out how she could use one of the devices with her hands in casts - a stylus wrapped to her slightly-free finger.

He’s giving her space to make a response.  She likes that.  She moves the stylus over the tablet screen, slowly typing out a message while Rick gets things ready for her breakfast.

Rick looks over. “‘Great British Baking Show until lunch, then Bob Ross as a nap-inducer,’” he reads. “Sounds good to me.  Okay, little bird, time to be fed.”

She tenses, pressing her feet against the living room floor and her back against the couch.

“It’s going to be okay,” Rick says softly. “I know you don’t believe me, but I’m telling you the truth.  The next five minutes are going to be okay.  We’ll worry about the rest of the day as it comes.”

He reaches up and gently lifts up the tube coiled around her ear, the one that runs down her nose and directly into her intestines.  She still hasn’t been able to get herself to eat anything beyond a few bites - the combination of the gunshot wound to her belly and the starvation imposed by Roman and Shepherd left her stomach ruined and her gag reflex hyper-aware.  Things are healing, but she has no desire to eat anything.

As they watch gentle British contestants struggle with sponge cakes, Rick carefully bolus feeds her a pre-measured amount of blenderized formula, something her mother and a dietician created while she was still in the hospital.  She fiddles with a button on her sweater, trying not to pay attention to anything he’s doing.

“Mom mentioned some of your coworkers are going to stop by today,” Rick says, trying to sound casual.  She knows he’s trying to be casual because she overheard the discussion the three of them - her mother, her father, and her brother - had about Jane and Zapata visiting and it was anything _but_ casual.  It was very angry.

Her mother was against it.  Her father was for it.  Rick was for it in some ways and also against it in some ways.

They didn’t ask her what she wanted.

Rick finishes with her formula, pushes her meds through the tube, and then goes on with the rest of her care - gently taking off the bandages on her neck, ankles, and forehead, cleaning the wounds, and reapplying dressings.  She looks over at him when he finishes with her forehead, and shakes her head.

“I have to,” he says gently.

She shakes her head again, fingers flicking up and down as much as they can within her casts.

“I will try my very best to make sure it doesn’t hurt,” Rick tells her. “I gave you the pain meds already, and…”

She can’t hear him.  There’s a roar in her head.  She knows he’s going to have to pull up her shirt and take the gauze and the tape off her gunshot wound and clean it and -

“Hey,” Rick says, close to her ear. “Tell me how I can help.”

She closes her eyes and leans towards him.  He shifts and wraps his arms around her, pulling her in tight and squeezing, rocking her back and forth.  As he rocks he softly starts to sing a song he’d made up when they were younger: _“My sister is like a little bird and her hands are like her wings… she has a little chirping voice and this is how she sings… she sings high, she sings low, and I will follow wherever she goes…”_

She takes a deep breath.

“There you go,” Rick whispers. “It’s okay.”

He strokes her hair and she feels all the tension sluice out of her body. “You’re so brave,” Rick says softly. “You’ve been through so much.”

People are saying that to her a lot.  She wishes she understood what they meant.  She only went through what she went through.  Was it more than she usually went through?  Yes.  Did she have any other options?  Dying, but she didn’t want to die.  Telling Shepherd and Roman what they wanted to know, but all of the things the FBI entrusted her with were classified for a _reason,_  and even though the reason Borden gave them was true, it wasn’t the only reason she wouldn’t tell them.  She’s autistic, but she has standards, too.  And she loves her job.

But she doesn’t know how to tell that all to Rick.  And he doesn’t know how to say the things she wants to hear, because she doesn’t actually know what the things she wants to hear are.  She just knows no one is saying them yet.

“Are you ready for me to do your stomach?” Rick asks, still holding her.

Because she wants it over, she nods.  She feels a little less like she’s caring about things, about the bandages that are going to come off her tender stomach skin and about the show on the TV and about her dry mouth and about the feeling of her socks on the floor of the living room.  She feels… light.  Floaty.

“Okay,” Rick says. “Are you going to fall asleep?”

She wants to say _no_ but her body won’t let her.  She tries to type _no_ but her fingers aren’t moving in the right way.  Her body feels very heavy, her eyelids are heavy too.  That’s odd.  Maybe she should close them, just for a few seconds, and see if they’re heavier when she opens them.

She doesn’t get around to opening them again.

 

**II. triangle puzzle**

Jane looks at Zapata as they stand on the front porch of Patterson’s parents’ house.  It’s a comfortable home in a neighborhood filled with similar houses, all looking well-loved and lived-in.  Patterson’s car is parked on a cement pad on the far side of the garage, and somehow that comforts Jane just a bit. “Do we… do I look okay?”

Zapata gives Jane an up-and-down. “I mean, you look like you usually do.  Did you want to look different?”

“I don’t know.  I just feel… awkward.”

“You’ve met Patterson’s parents before, and her brother, too,” Zapata says. “At the hospital.”

“I know.  And they’re really nice.  But she was…”

Zapata nods. “She was unconscious.  And they were really worried.”

“And now she’s at their house, and I just want to make sure I make a good impression.”

“I think you’ll make a fine impression.”

“I mean, Weller told me Patterson’s dad is a really famous scientist, and her mom’s some sort of scientist too, and…”

Zapata puts her hands on Jane’s shoulders. “Listen.  It’s adorable that you’re so flustered about this, but you don’t need to be.  It’s Patterson.”

“I just want her back,” Jane says softly.

“Me too.” Zapata rings the doorbell.

A few minutes later, Rick Nye appears at the door.  He’s blond, like Patterson, with an easygoing manner.  Today he looks effortlessly casual in jeans and a flannel shirt; he’s shoeless, thick wool socks on his feet.  He gives them a polite smile. “Hi.  Nice to see you again. Jane, right?  And Tasha?”

They nod and exchange pleasantries.  He ushers them into the house. “She’s sleeping,” he says, “so I’ve just been cleaning up the kitchen.”

The kitchen looks sparkling clean already, and Rick seems to acknowledge this, flushing a little as he leads them in. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Zapata says, “Water?” and Jane agrees.  Rick busies himself getting glasses, and Jane takes the time to look around the kitchen.  It’s warm and homey and even though this isn’t her home, Jane wants to settle into this place.  Maybe Rick will take care of her, too.

“How is she?” Zapata asks.

Rick puts two glasses on the counter. “She’s… better than she was.  I think she misses being at work.”

“We miss having her,” Zapata says. “She does a lot of good.”

Jane nods, taking a long drink of her water.

The telephone rings and Rick gets up. “Sorry,” he says. “My mom went back to work for the first time today - I’m sure she’s just calling to check on my sister.”

He goes over to answer the phone and Jane stands up.  She can’t be in the house any longer without seeing Patterson.

“Jane,” Zapata says quietly.

“I’m just… I’ll be right back.”

Jane takes a few steps out of the kitchen and sticks her head around the corner, finding that from there she can peek into the living room.  Curled up on the couch, under a blanket, is Patterson.  Jane sees messy blond hair, blue wrist casts, a red knitted sweater with fat wooden buttons, several stark white bandages, and fleece socks.  The TV is playing a show Jane remembers watching with Patterson a few months ago, a show with bakers that Patterson loves and Jane loves simply because watching it with Patterson is all that matters to her.

Patterson looks both so comfortable and so fragile that it takes all of Jane’s self-control not to run across the room and scoop her up, hold her tightly, protect her against the world, make sure she stays this safe.  It’s eons away from the torture dungeon where they found her almost two months ago and light-years away from the hospital where Patterson stayed for almost a month, but it’s all still so uncertain; all Jane knows is that she’s here, and Patterson’s here, and maybe nothing else matters.  She slowly approaches and sits down on the floor, her back against the couch, and takes Patterson’s fingers in hers. “Hi,” Jane whispers.

The feeling of the casts is rough in her hand but Patterson smells right and her face is so close and familiar that Jane feels exactly at home, even in this house where she’s never been before.  She leans her head onto the couch and just waits, her eyes never leaving Patterson’s face.

 

She’s warm and comfortable and nothing hurts.  She opens her eyes as she registers someone’s fingers around hers, and as her sleep-blurry eyes focus, she sees Jane sitting on the floor of her parents’ living room, holding what’s visible of her right hand.  She knows that feelings are sometimes bigger than her whole body, and a whole bunch of them rush over her at once - _gratitude_ for Jane, who she now knows was part of the team who saved her; _shame_ for not being her usual self and instead being this wrecked, injured shell of a Patterson; _comfort_ from seeing her friend again; _fear_ that Jane will somehow think she’s too broken.

And _safety._  She’s _safe._

“Jane,” she whisper-squeaks, one of her first words in almost two months.  She remembers all of the other ones: _thirsty_ and _hurts_ to her dad, one day in the hospital; _sorry_ to both her mom and Rick, one night after she’d wet the bed after a nightmare; and _I don’t believe you_ to Roman, right before she’d passed out in his hellhole.

Tears flood her eyes and she can’t move.

Jane sits up and, still holding her hand, leans in and smoothes hair away from her face, kisses her forehead. “Hi,” she says. “I’m so glad to see you.”

She tenses her fingers around Jane’s, trying to squeeze out a “hello.”

“I’ve seen you a couple of times since we found you,” Jane goes on, her voice husky. “But you weren’t awake for any of them.  The first time… the first time was when we found you. Zapata was with me, and Nas too. Then I was with you in the hospital, while we waited for your parents to come and see you.  And I visited another time. It was a Tuesday, and it was raining, and you’d just had another surgery on your stomach, so you were really out of it.”

She has to smile.  Jane’s rambling like she does sometimes.  There are tears in Jane’s eyes, too, and she tries to understand those.  Jane is happy, she can tell, but there’s something else too.  Concern? She isn’t sure.

Rick pokes his head into the living room and Zapata is there too, another fantastic face she’s missed oh-so-much. “Mom was on the phone,” Rick says, and she props herself up on one elbow on the couch to listen to him. “She left her research here and wants me to bring it down to her.  Are you okay to stay here with your friends?”

She nods.

“Okay.” He looks between Zapata and Jane, and she can tell that he doesn’t quite believe her, and that he doesn’t want to leave her with the two of them.  But seeing them here is reminding her of everything she’s missed over the last several months, and she feels more _normal_ than she has in weeks. “I’ll… uh… I’ll be back in about forty-five minutes.”

To Jane and Zapata, he says, “Help yourself to anything in you find in the kitchen.”

“Thank you,” Zapata says, and she smiles.

When Rick is gone she sits up all the way and tugs on Jane’s hand, bringing Jane onto the couch next to her, pulling Jane in close, leaning her head against Jane, and that feels right.

“Can I sit down, too?” Zapata asks.

She nods, and indicates the couch on her other side with her casted hand.  Soon both of them are pressed up against her like a Patterson sandwich, and she smiles.  There are all kinds of touches in the world, and she definitely has her preferences - and this one’s at the top of the list, at least for right now.

 

Patterson falls asleep between the two of them after about an hour, her fingertips still in Jane’s hand.  Jane turns her head slightly to look over at Zapata. “She seems okay.”

“Not great, but okay,” Zapata agrees.  Patterson’s tablet is in her lap, remnants of their conversation still visible.

“It’s good to see her,” Jane says. “It was… I was imagining things were so much worse, just because we couldn’t see her.  And now…”

She just revels in the feeling of Patterson’s head on her shoulder.

“It’s good,” Zapata says. “I get it.”

They hear the back door open and after a few beats, Rick reappears. “Hi,” he says. “Sorry it took me so long.  My mom was -”

His eyes fall on Patterson, asleep between them. “She’s…”

“She’s super-relaxed,” Zapata says, giving him a smile.

Rick seems uncomfortable as he continues to study them. “Um, I'm sorry it took me so long, so if you guys have to go…”

“Do you _want_ us to go?” Jane asks.

He sighs. “Look, I don’t really know how to say this, but… part of me wants to throw you out of here, and part of me wants to ask you to stay.”

Zapata and Jane exchange glances.

“If she wasn’t working at the FBI, the odds are good none of this would have happened to her,” Rick goes on, nodding at his sister sandwiched between them. “None of us wanted her to go to New York or to work for the FBI, but telling her that she _shouldn’t_ do something or that she _can’t_ do something is just about as good as assuring she’ll do it.  It’s been that way her whole life.”

Jane smiles.  That’s her Patterson.

“She’s been smarter than everyone since she’s been able to communicate, and she’d honestly be wasted at some research firm or university,” Rick says. “Understanding even a tiny bit of what she does for the FBI blows my mind.  She’s… next level.  In that way I’m so grateful for you, and for your two other coworkers she talks about - Weller and Reade.  And the woman who used to be your boss… Mayfair, right?”

Zapata nods.

“You gave her a work family in a time when she really needed it,” Rick says. “You somehow saw beyond all the eccentricities that usually keep her so socially reserved, and you liked her for her.  Especially you,” he adds, looking at Jane with a small smile.

“She’s wonderful,” Jane tells him.

“We’re lucky to get to work with her,” Zapata agrees.

“So while I’m enraged that something like this could happen to my baby sister… if she had to have anyone picking her up afterwards, getting her out of that place and bringing her to safety, I’m awfully glad it was you.”

Patterson shifts in her sleep and her fingers tighten in Jane’s.

“If it makes you feel any better, which it probably won’t, we’re just as enraged that it happened,” Zapata says softly. “She means a lot to our whole team.”

“We’re still trying to find the people responsible,” Jane says. “But we’ll get them.”

“Good,” Rick says.

“And when she’s ready to come home - I mean, back to New York - we’re going to make sure she’s got people helping her to get readjusted.  We’re all going to take shifts.”

Rick tilts his head, smiling. “It’s funny… I never thought I’d consider anywhere but here her home.  And yet I know it’s not true - I’ve been to her apartment and that is very definitely her home. I’m glad you’ll be looking out for her.  She doesn’t belong here anymore.  It’s a nice place to rest, but I’m pretty sure she’s getting stir-crazy.”

He laughs. “Also, there’s only so many times I’m willing to listen to Weezer’s cover of ‘Africa’ before I just want to strangle her.  Of all the autistic things she does… that one drives me crazy the most.”

Jane laughs along with Rick and Zapata, but she holds Patterson’s fingers just a little tighter, because that’s one of the things she loves the most about Patterson.  Maybe it’s just because she doesn’t know many songs, or because she has no frame of reference for a song’s relevance, but she loves realizing that Patterson’s “song of the week” from the lab is flowing through her bloodstream.

And she knows “Africa” now, and “Ticket to Ride,” and “Spice Up Your Life,” and “Rule the World,” and at least fourteen other songs that are part of her now, indelibly imprinted on her brain, filling in spots of emptiness.  They’re gifts Patterson didn’t even realize she was offering, gifts Jane took with pleasure, holds close to her heart in the dark nights when half-remembered memories sweep her nightmares.  Patterson, someone not always able to communicate in ways most people would call “conventional,” has always known how to talk to Jane - even if it’s only through the lyrics of the songs that play on repeat in the lab.

 

**III. twist and turn**

It’s her first day back in her apartment and things are not going as well as she would like.  She doesn’t feel right here anymore.  Yes, all of her things are here - her books and her games and her dice and her dishes and her bed and her clothes - but they feel _off,_  like someone moved them while she was gone, but only a few centimeters to one side or the other, and is now watching her expectantly to see if she noticed.

(She noticed.  She noticed, even though nothing’s actually moved.)

She stands in the doorway with her head tilted, counting her breaths, not wanting to go inside.  Her parents stayed for awhile, making sure her refrigerator was cleaned out and restocked with food - not that she’s graduated much beyond pudding, yogurt, and apple straws - but then even they had to go.  Now it’s just her, standing on the threshold between the hallway and her apartment, her one-time safe zone, and she can’t get her body to move forward.

She bows her head and rocks back and forth, her wrists flexing and her fingers flicking up and down.  She’s suddenly vulnerable and exposed and all she wants to do is take four steps forward and be _home,_ but something in her head whispers _it’s not your home anymore, it’s not safe, you’ll never be safe again._

“P?”

She hears Zapata’s voice as though far away, though some part of her brain registers that it’s just because Zapata’s coming up the hallway towards her.  Zapata sounds _concerned,_ and she doesn’t like making people _concerned_ about her although that’s all everyone around her seems to be.

She tries to take a deep breath and explain to Zapata what’s happening, but her whisper-squeak voice breaks as all she can get out is, “Please don’t make me go in there.”

Zapata’s hand takes hers, and her right hand’s frantic stims stop. “You don’t have to go in there,” Zapata says gently. “You don’t _have_ to do anything.”

“But I live here.”

“Do you want to continue to live here?”

She squeezes her eyes shut.  That’s too big of a question.

“Hey, you don’t have to think about it right now,” Zapata says, “but sometimes when people go through something traumatic… it can help to change surroundings.”

“But I live here.  And there’s food in there for me.  And my games are there.” It sounds stupid as she says it.

“Where do you want to be _right now?”_ Zapata asks.

“I want…” She rocks her head back and forth, her whole body caught up in the stim. “I want…”

“P, slow down your body so you can think,” Zapata says, her voice soft.

She takes a deep breath, and when she can speak again, her voice is small. “I want somebody to hold onto me.”

“Okay,” Zapata says. “Any preference as to who?”

She shakes her head.

“Okay.  Can we do that in the apartment, or do we need to go somewhere else?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice sounds dangerously close to crying, and she feels the roar start to build in her head.

“Okay.  I’m going to try something.  Just trust me, and keep taking deep breaths.”

She closes her eyes again, and feels Zapata take both of her hands.  Before she has time to process what’s happening Zapata’s taking steps forward, gently pulling her into the apartment. “No,” she says, and immediately the movement stops.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“It’s all… different.”

“Your apartment?”

She nods.  The roar is getting louder and she feels tears in her eyes.  She doesn’t know what this feeling is called.

“I think maybe _you’re_ different, P.”

She doesn’t know when Zapata and Reade started calling her “P,” but she does know that she likes it.  Besides Rick calling her “little bird,” she’s never had a nickname before.  Nicknames signify closeness to people, and that people are fond of a person.  This pleases her, although sometimes she wonders how much she really deserves a nickname.

“You’ve been gone awhile,” Zapata goes on. “It’s not going to feel perfect on your first day back.  That’s why we’re all going to help out.  We’ll figure it all out.”

“I’m _wrong,”_ she spits out, and as those two words leave her mouth she isn’t sure where they came from but she does know they’re absolutely true.

“Oh, P.”

She feels Zapata’s arms wrap around her, and she leans into her friend and sobs.

  


Zapata sleeps in Patterson’s bed that night - or, rather, she stays awake in Patterson’s bed, watching Patterson fight through nightmare after nightmare in seven hours of tortured sleep.  Jane takes Tuesday and Wednesday.  They’re both there on Thursday night when Patterson refuses to sleep, her at-first simple refusal spinning into fragments of words spilling from her mouth in an unstoppable verbal stim that accompanies the full-body stims she can’t break from, rocking and ticcing and flapping and flicking in the middle of the kitchen, sobbing because nothing makes sense.

“This is decidedly not good,” Zapata says to Jane as they stand a few feet away, their eyes locked on Patterson’s stimming body.

“What do we do?” Jane whispers.

“Patterson?” Zapata raises her voice. “P, can you slow down your body to talk to us?”

Patterson’s body rocks forward, then back, arms in, then out, fingers flicking like wild jazz hands, head bobbing, knees bending, wrists jerking; she gives no sign she’s even registered Zapata’s query. “Came home… came home… isn’t home… isn’t home anymore…”

Jane takes a few steps forward until she’s in Patterson’s body radius. “We just want to help,” she says gently. “I’m going to try something, just to see if you can slow down long enough to tell us what you need.”

She wraps her arms around Patterson, suddenly bearing the brunt of four full limbs of stimming at once.  She hears Patterson grunt out something and tightens her squeeze. “Is this helping?” Jane whispers.

“Why is he still here?” Patterson murmurs, so softly that Jane nearly misses it.

“Who?” Jane asks.

Patterson’s head comes to rest on Jane’s shoulder, a familiar feeling that Jane adores. “Borden.  He was never here.  This is where I live.  Where I’m supposed to live.  Why is he still here?”

“Do you want to hear what I think?” Zapata steps up behind Jane and carefully strokes some of Patterson’s sweaty hair away from her eyes.

“Mm-hmm.” Patterson sounds sleepy.

“He’s here because you’re letting him be here,” Zapata says. “If this is where you want to stay, then you fight for it.”

“And you?”

“If you want us here, we’ll be here,” Jane tells her.

“I would like you to stay.”

“Then we’re not going anywhere.”

 

It’s a tight squeeze, the three of them in Patterson’s bed, but somehow they all manage; Patterson curls into Jane and passes out nearly immediately, exhausted from the panic attack.  Her two protectors look at each other over her sleeping form.

“What now?” Zapata asks.

Jane shakes her head, completely without an answer, and instead softly repeats the question as she runs her fingers through Patterson’s hair. “What now?”

  


**IV. providence**

There’s a box on the floor in front of her door when she opens it the next morning.  She recognizes the handwriting that painstakingly printed out her address and the return address.  This is a David box.

David is a long-time friend, not a “best friend” because she isn’t quite sure what exactly would qualify that, but a very good friend.  They met at a “socialization” group when they were twelve years old, and each immediately recognized something in the other that clicked.  She’s not quite sure what that was, but she knew David was the smartest person in the room besides her.  He knew lots of things about puzzles and word play and math and geography and books and magic and games, and he bounced on his tiptoes when he was excited, and he sometimes tried to hold her hand and sometimes she’d let him.  Over the last two years they’ve spent hours online watching a web series about Dungeons & Dragons and chatting about it, drawing fan art and writing fanfic, and talking about a campaign they’d run someday, if they could, even though she was sure she could never, ever be a good DM.

David was less practical about their shortcomings.

_Nobody’s going to want an autistic DM,_ she’d told him once, flatly.

_You’re just saying that.  I’m going to do it. When I get settled in here -_ “here” being Grand Rapids, Michigan, where David’s job as a librarian took him most recently - _I’m going to start a campaign.  You’ll see._

_They’ll say you’re too weird._

_I’ve been called that before.  Didn’t change anything for me._  His red-cheeked face broke into a grin that she could see, clearly, on the Skype window, and somehow his enthusiasm made her feel safe.

She takes the box inside and sets it on the kitchen table, staring at it for a long ten minutes before she finally gets a pair of scissors and carefully snips open the packing tape holding the package closed.

Inside is a letter and a small parcel of something wrapped in tissue paper.  She takes out the letter first.

_Hello.  This is David._

(He starts all his letters the same way, no matter that he’s one of the few people who ever sends her packages or actual letters.)

_Your dad called me.  He said something really bad happened to you and then he told me what it was.  He used words that I never wanted anyone to use when they talk about you.  They are the wrong words to use for you.  It made me feel sick.  I wanted to come and protect you but your dad said he was taking care of you and also your mom and Rick and your coworker friends so I thought it is okay that I stayed here._

_I asked your dad if you missed any episodes of our show and he said probably but that you maybe caught up._

(She had.  Somehow even her favorite show wasn’t enough to make things feel right again, but it helped, just like her “soft” shows - the baking show and Bob Ross episodes.)

_If you have then okay you can open this, but if not wait until you’re caught up.  I wanted to send you a protector since I can’t be there._

She reaches into the tissue paper and discovers, looking up at her, a tiny black plush bird with big eyes, wearing a green cape and holding a tiny knife between its black wings.

“Oh,” she murmurs.  It’s Kiri, a kenku character from their beloved web show, a sassy bird who can only speak phrases she’s heard before.  David loves Kiri because of how he learned to talk - repeating phrases from movies and TV shows and things he’d other people say.  She loves Kiri because Kiri takes no shit from anybody, even when she doesn’t have the right words to communicate what she wants to say.

_I thought you could use somebody who’s brave like you,_ the letter goes on.  _Also I know you know how to use that flippy knife thing, so you have something more in common._

(She does.  Rick taught her, because, as he said, “Everyone needs one party trick.”)

_So she can stay with you until I can come see you.  I am your friend because you are my friend.  Sincerely, David._

She takes Kiri out of the package and strokes Kiri’s velvety head.  Kiri wouldn’t let Borden stay.  Maybe, just maybe, she doesn’t have to let him stay either.

When she falls asleep on the couch later, she sets Kiri on her chest, and for the first time since she’s been home, she doesn’t dream about her captivity.  It’s maybe progress, and though she hates to deal in maybes, preferring the security of black-and-white to any possibly gray areas, she feels something in her starting to bloom again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Tumblr as memorysdaughter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this last chapter. I don't know if there'll be more to this series, but this felt like a good ending to this story.
> 
> The song near the end is "Anchor" by Mindy Gledhill.

Patterson doesn’t like to hold hands.  Jane’s learned this.  Patterson prefers to stim with her fingers and hands, so it’s mostly not noticeable in the office and her lab like her rocking would be.  Patterson has lots of little fidgety toys she twists her fingers into, stretchy balls full of glittery squishy stuff that she passes from hand to hand, spinny rings, and clicky bracelets that occupy her hands throughout the day, when her fingers aren’t being used to manipulate images on a screen or type like a clicking blur.  Jane likes all of those things, but over the time she’s known Patterson, she sometimes wishes Patterson _did_ like to hold hands.  It seems like a nice thing to do, and Patterson has very nice hands, small and smooth and quick.

She regrets that wish when Patterson comes back to work after her abduction, torture, and recovery, because Patterson clings to one of them for the entire day, her hands alternately sweaty and clammy, her body often seeming to spasm in terror at loud noises, opening doors, approaching coworkers, and any sudden change in her body’s position, like when Reade bumps into her accidentally, nearly knocking her to the floor.

Patterson lasts three hours on her first day back before she runs for the bathroom, haplessly yanking Jane, her at-the-time hand-connected world-weight, with her.  She only lets go of Jane to push into a stall, where she vomits - once, twice, a third time.

“Hey,” Jane says softly, when the vomiting has stopped and Patterson is slumped on the floor, breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry,” Patterson wails.

“No, no, shh,” Jane says.  She grabs a few papers towels, wets them, and sits down next to Patterson. “Are you okay to be touched?”

Patterson nods miserably.

Jane carefully wipes Patterson’s face and smooths back her hair.  Patterson sighs and leans into Jane. “This is okay?”

“It’s wonderful.”

Patterson smiles, only a little sadly, and she closes her eyes.

Jane slips her hand into Patterson’s and squeezes.  She’s not expecting it, but Patterson squeezes back, and there’s something beautiful and sad about the connection all at once.

 

* * *

 

She’s been holding a lot of hands recently.  Jane’s mostly, but sometimes Zapata’s and Reade’s, Weller’s when he’s not busy (he seems to be very busy), one time Nas’s (she still can’t figure out how she feels about this new woman, because Nas is no Mayfair and she misses Mayfair very much), and, in the lab, Rich Dot Com’s.  He’s funny, and he seems to understand that she’s very literal but that she loves wordplay.  Sometimes he calls her “Patty Cake” which she isn’t crazy about but she knows he thinks is very funny, so she lets it happen.  Friendship, she knows, is a give-and-take.

It’s much better holding hands now that her casts are off.  Typing is faster, too.  Eating is easier.

In fact, most things are better, with the exceptions of 1.) work, 2.) sleeping, and 3.) being alone.  In the past when things weren’t going well with 2.), she would just stay at work all the time.  But now work makes her anxious too.  No, not anxious.

She thinks of Mayfair and how they used to work on words together.   _Anxious_ isn’t the right word now, though.  Nor _nervous._   Nor _apprehensive._   

_Scared.  Terrified.  Convinced that if she stops paying attention to every little detail someone’s going to kidnap her again._

Mayfair would have known what to do.

She tries to focus on work, but things changed while she was gone, invisibly, the same way her apartment seemed to change.  Rich told her that nobody touched her stuff, and she’s pretty sure he wouldn’t lie to her about something like that, but she still spends fifteen minutes every morning going back and forth between her monitors and the table setup and the lab machines, touching them and repositioning them, making a loop on the tile floor until she can begin working.

She’s pretty sure people are worried about her.

She’s worried about her, too.

 

* * *

 

“I want to do something special for Patterson,” Jane tells Weller as they head towards the lab.

“What kind of special are we talking?” he asks.

“Well, she’s moving into her new apartment next week, and I know we’re all going to help and there’s some sort of dinner or whatever while we unpack, but… what’s an appropriate housewarming gift?”

Weller stops and looks at her. “You know, for Patterson, I’m not entirely sure.  Let me check with some sources, and I’ll get back to you.”

Jane nods. “Okay.”

“But Jane… you know her almost better than anyone else.  You might not know about housewarming gifts, but you know what she’s like at her most vulnerable, and maybe supporting her is the very best gift right now.”

She rolls her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, smiling, holding up his hands. “I’ll do some research for you.”

“Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

She feels sort of… _drunk,_ despite that being impossible because she hasn’t had anything alcoholic to drink today.  The apartment is too big around her now and she feels too small, because most of her things are packed up in boxes, waiting to be taken over to the new apartment.  When her friends asked her where she wanted to be, she said _home_ before realizing that both apartments, legally, for right now, _are_ her home.  This is confusing.

“We’ll go over with the first load of boxes,” her dad says now, and Rick agrees. “Stay here and make sure you’ve got everything.  Mom can bring you over in a bit.”

She looks at her friends and at her mom, and they all seem to be waiting for her to make decisions.  Things start pulsing in her head, and the roar is threatening to build.  She digs her fingers into her palms, and is about to rock when a hand slips into hers, depositing one of her stim toys.  She looks over at Jane, tension dropping from her shoulders. Jane just smiles, and squeezes her wrist for a second before letting go.

“Yes,” she says, finding her voice as her fingers begin manipulating the rings of the toy in her hand. “I’ll stay here and pack up the rest of the stuff.”

She goes back in the bedroom, clicking away at the fidget.  Her head hurts.  She closes her eyes.

She hears Jane say, “Hey” softly, and an arm gently wraps around her shoulders.  Without opening her eyes, she leans to the side, putting her head on Jane’s shoulder.

“How can I help?” Jane asks.

“It’s too much,” she says faintly.

“We can make it smaller.”

“I don’t want to stay here.”

“We can leave as soon as you want.”

“But I don’t want to go there.”

Jane takes that in. “Where do you want to be?”

She thinks about this, her fingers working the fidget in soothing loops.  There are a few places in the world she fits without question: her lab.  Her parents’ house.  Wherever Jane is, mostly, usually.  The game store on Louis Street that her friend Laura owns.  In David’s presence.  But there’s no space that’s _hers,_ not hers totally, not anymore.  There’s too much clutter in her head.  Too many endings here.

“Can I go to the new apartment?” She opens her eyes and looks at Jane.

Jane looks _serious,_ but she knows that look, and it’s _care_ and _concern._  It’s loving and it’s so gentle that she almost wants to cry.

“Of course you can,” Jane says. “I’ll get Weller to drive us over there.  We’ll let everybody else pack up the rest of this stuff.”

So she gets her blue suitcase and her green backpack and the one box she marked _Very Important Moving Day_ with all of the things she’s going to need for tonight, just in case nothing’s set up.  She needs all of the Very Important Moving Day things so she’ll be able to sleep, even if just her bed is in the right place and nothing else.  She doesn’t want anyone else to touch the Very Important Moving Day things in case anything gets lost.  She doesn’t even really want to let it out of her sight, but she lets Weller put it in the back of his SUV with her suitcase and then she sits in the passenger seat holding her backpack on her lap.  She feels a little like she’s going to a new school where she doesn’t know anyone yet, and that makes her stomach upset.

“Where do you want to order dinner from tonight?” Weller asks as they’re driving.

She shakes her head.  She hasn’t thought as far as dinner.  Honestly, most food hasn’t tasted right since she _came back._  Only certain things, and never the same certain things more than a few times in a row.  She knows that’s a psychological scar, carved into her brain the same way a radiator grate carved a thick slash into her knee when she was six and fell off the bed when she and Rick were jumping.

She knows it.  She doesn’t like it.

She wants to taste coconut cake again without it filling her mouth like sawdust.

She wants to tell someone, but having the only psychiatrist in her life turn out to be one of _the bad guys_ sort of soured her on the whole field.

“How about Rico’s?” Jane says from the back seat.

“Nah, gotta order from Martelli’s now,” Weller tells her. “Rico’s won’t deliver anymore.”

She presses her hands against her eyes.

“Patterson,” Jane says softly. “Tell us how we can help.”

“I don’t want _help,”_ she spits. “I want to be _fixed.”_

Those are the kind of words that people don’t really know how to respond to, and she knows that, uses them like weapons, because it shuts them up.  She pushes the heels of her palms in further against her eyes and rocks back and forth in the front seat, waiting for the car to stop moving.

 

* * *

 

“Change is really hard on autistic people,” Bill says to his daughter’s friends, gathered around in the apartment they’re all hoping will be her new safe port in a storm.  They’ve managed to arrive before she has, asking Weller to take a more circuitous route to the new apartment. “All of this has to be crushing her. Everything physical may have healed, more or less, but mentally she’s struggling.  And on top of suddenly wanting to move - it’s indicating to us that she’s not doing well.”

He squeezes his wife, Nancy’s, hand - the Patterson who gave birth to a Patterson - and she smiles at him. “We’re so grateful you’re all here.”

They’re a motley crew.  There’s her work friends: Natasha, who knows about stars; Edgar, who held her when she was sick; Nas, who’s new; and Rich, who is both new and confusing, but they all seem to care about her so very much.  There’s her “real life” friends: David, bobbing up and down on his the balls of his feet as his bespectacled face takes in everyone in the room; and Laura, who owns the game store and treats Patterson like a sister.  And then the three of them - Bill and Nancy and Rick, the very first people to love her.  And the absence of Mayfair, who Bill greatly admired and respected - Mayfair, whose guidance and involvement in Patterson’s life changed the entire direction of his daughter’s life and gave Bill himself hope for what his daughter’s future could be.

“You have all given her - and by extension, _us_ \- so much hope for her.  I don’t know if this move is going to fix everything, but we’re viewing it as a blank slate,” Nancy says. “We’ll attempt to repay the favor by buying you all dinner and some beer.”

There’s smiles and a few chuckles.  David raises his hand.

“And chocolate milk,” Nancy adds, knowing exactly what David would say.  He blushes, smiles, and bobs his head.

“And chocolate milk,” he repeats softly, with some satisfaction.

 

* * *

 

When she comes into the new apartment to find everyone there and working and unpacking her brain overloads.  Colors rush together and her heart pounds in her ears and the roar builds. She lets out a little strangled noise, her left hand crushing the stim toy against her palm, pain radiating outward and upward.

Her father’s the first one to her, _concern_ on his face, but she holds up her hands in front of her like a shield, trying to push him back, to push _them_ back, to push all of this back.

“Too much,” she bites out. “Too much.”

“Okay,” she hears her father say. “Let’s give her some space.”

“Are you okay to be touched?” Jane’s voice is gentle, careful, from behind her. “Your hand’s bleeding.”

She shakes her head, because she doesn’t want anybody near her, can’t bear the noise and the pressure.

“Okay,” Jane says, and she feels Jane step back, away from her.

It just makes her more _miserable_ because she can’t even let anyone help her and she knows what that face looks like and it’s _her_ face.  She stands in the doorway, rocking, her hand pulsing, and one word trickles past her lips: _"Sorry._ _Sorry.  Sorry.  Sorry.”_

 

* * *

 

Jane looks over at Zapata and feels absolutely no comfort when Zapata can only shrug.

 _You know her better,_ Zapata’s eyes seem to say.   _She trusts you._

Jane looks over at her Patterson, her wonderful smart Patterson who is so kind, and so gentle, and whose battles have only reinforced her love for this brainy, clever, and yes, _autistic_ scientist, rocking back and forth in the foyer of an apartment half-filled with boxes, hand bleeding, and Jane finds the right words.

_“There are those who think that I’m strange, they would box me up and tell me to change, but you hold me close and softly say…”_

It’s the part where Jane wants Patterson to join in, but all she hears is _sorry sorry,_ so she keeps going. “ _... that you wouldn’t have me any other way.  When all the world is spinning round, like a red balloon way up in the clouds, and my feet will not stay on the ground, you anchor me back down.”_

The rocking is slowing, so Jane starts at the beginning. _“When all the world is spinning round, like a red balloon way up in the clouds, and my feet will not stay on the ground…”_

Finally Patterson’s voice joins in. _“... you anchor me back down.”_

She doesn’t raise her head, but she keeps singing, and Jane looks up at their friends.  Reade steps forward with a first aid kit, and Weller steps up behind Patterson to hold her hand steady while Jane dresses the cut on her palm.

_“You anchor me back down.”_

 

* * *

 

When the apartment is - somewhat - unpacked, and dinner is ordered and delivered and eaten, and mostly everyone has gone home, Bill touches Jane gently on the elbow. “Take a walk with me, will you?”

Jane looks over at the partially-unpacked chaos, and at Patterson, asleep on the couch, and at Rick and Weller, who are playing silenced video games in the midst of the boxes, and says, “Okay.”

They leave the building and go down the front steps, and they’re walking down the block before Bill speaks again. “Did you know there are a hundred billion stars in the universe?”

Truthfully Jane says, “No.”

“There are.  And all of them are different.  Some of them are just being born, and some died thousands of years ago but we’re just seeing their light now.  They’re all different colors, and they’re much bigger than we think they are, so much bigger than we can even conceive of, looking at them from down here.  They’re mysterious, they’re difficult to wrap our minds around, and yet they’re so marvelous and beautiful and breathtaking at the same time.” Bill looks over at her. “And why am I telling you all this?”

Jane smiles, only a little awkwardly.  She likes Bill.  He’s gentle and kind, and she can see in him how much he adores his family.

“I’m telling you this because my daughter has always loved the stars, and I have always thought of her as one.  Not in the way a father must think of a child, as something bright and shining, but in the way of loving something mysterious and difficult to handle and yet so marvelous it is impossible to do anything but love her.” Bill gives her a smile. “And I’m telling you this because I see how you look at her, and I think you feel exactly the same way.”

Jane looks up at him, this bow-tied man in his green jacket, and without a word she puts her arms around him and hugs him.

She hears a soft _oof,_ as though he wasn’t expecting it, but after a few seconds his arms come up and return the hug, patting her gently on the back.

“Thank you,” Jane whispers, unsure whether she’s thanking him for the hug or the stars or even just for recognizing how much she cares about Patterson.

Bill chuckles. “Welcome to the family, Jane.”

 

* * *

 

She sleeps, and when she wakes, she is safe on her couch in her new apartment, and Kiri is by her head, and the apartment is quiet around her.  She picks her head up and sees a strange but very comforting sight - Jane, asleep in a pile of blankets on the far side of the room.  She smiles.

She pushes back the blanket over her and sits up.  There, at the foot of the couch, is a medium-sized square box, wrapped in red paper.  She’s very positive it wasn’t there when she went to sleep.

She sets Kiri to one side and slides the box towards her, carefully slitting open the paper with her fingernail.  A little card falls out of the side, neatly folded, the inner inscription penned in Jane’s quick hand.

_I asked Kurt what a traditional housewarming gift would be, and while he never got back to me, Rich told me that historically people would give each other things that symbolized wishes for the future of whoever lived in the house: bread and salt and a broom, and then he didn’t explain any of that, so I went looking for my own wishes.  As it turns out, they’re not too hard to find when you love someone._

She opens the box and finds that it’s been segmented off with a small cardboard divider.  In each segment of the divider there’s something small, with a note tied to it, each note in different handwriting.

A jade elephant, the card in Zapata’s handwriting: _to the wisest person I know, I wish stability and strength._

A laughing Buddha, Weller’s writing attached: _to the gentlest person I know, I wish happiness and joy._

A silvery St. Jude medal, Reade’s penmanship on the card: _to Patterson, who manages to do the impossible every single day, I wish guidance and safety._

A string of blue Turkish evil eye amulets with Rich’s scrawl: _I don’t know if this stuff really works, but if it does, I wish that everyone you meet is as open and honest as you are._

A small metal dragonfly with iridescent glass wings, the writing Nas’s and nearly as beautiful: _for Patterson, I wish courage and peace._

And finally, a key, made of silver wire twisting and winding, wrapping around a small sapphire star, and Jane’s familiar writing accompanying it: _for the one who first started unlocking me, here’s to opening up the future._

“Oh,” she breathes, tears filling her eyes, and the world feels so open and beautiful and _new._

Arms wrap around her and she looks up into Jane’s sweet face, and she says, “I don’t deserve this.”

“That’s the thing about wishes,” Jane says, smiling. “Sometimes they come true whether you deserve them or not.”

And though there are too many boxes in the living room, that’s okay, because soon there won’t be.  And though the walls are too empty, that’s okay too, because soon they won’t be.  And even if things don’t make sense right now, that’s okay, because someday they will.  She’s not quite sure _how_ she knows this, and normally that would frighten her, but it’s morning and she is safe and warm and maybe that’s all that has to happen for right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the "wish items" at the end are traditional symbols for good luck and for the other traits used in the story.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr as memorysdaughter.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr as memorysdaughter.


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